Metaphorical Love
by RiverGray
Summary: She was the most beautiful rose, with thorns so sharp they scarred his heart the first time he laid eyes on her. He was a blaze of morning glory, smoldering blue and molten gold with a million secrets locked deep inside. Two lives, touched and bound by poison ivy. Two stories, dusted with poppy petals and dreams. And one frigid winter, that could send it all up in flames.
1. My Words

_What are flowers to you?_

Honestly? Truthfully? Flowers grow where flowers are wont to grow. I see them everywhere I turn, so fragile and so beautiful, like sweet, innocent demons that exist solely to taunt me about the life I could never have.

_What do they represent? What do they represent to you?_

Do you know what flowers stand for? Some people tell me they stand for life. New life, growing old. For springtime; cherryblossoms and black, ink-drawn branches, swaying gently upon smooth dry parchment. Is that what life is? Is that what we die for, in the end?

Can anyone really say?

I can say.

Flowers are for death. Because, no matter how beautiful they are, no matter how much you water them, they will _wither_ and _die_. Because everything ends, in the end. There is no 'forever and always'.

Forever and always.

I remember, I remember.

Forever.

And _always_.

_Why do we give people flowers? Why are flowers important to us?_

Sometimes I wonder about all the things that might have been.

Once, I thought I believed that flowers were symbols of love. But every rose has its thorns, and every flower must die one day.

Is love really like that? Is love even real?

Once, you said that you would show me love like I had never known.

But, in the end, there was really nothing for you to show.

_We teach children rhymes and songs; Roses are red, violets are blue._

Sugar is sweet, and so are you.

The words echo in my head, leaving me lost and empty.

_So are you... So are you..._

_Sugar is sweet... Sugar is sweet..._

_So are you..._

Are you?

Are you sweet?

Even then, before... before everything, before everything happened... you were never a 'sweet' person. You were so bright it made it hard for me to see the world; only you, and nothing but you. So fierce and so beautiful, but moody and wild and unpredictable as well.

Emcompassing everything, and, yet, nothing. Like a trickle to the sea...

_... And leave behind your broken heart so his own may fly free._

_Do flowers have meanings? Some people say yes, and some people say no. What about the Victorian 'Language of Flowers'? What do you think?_

I don't like to think about it much. It's like I can't even escape flowers in my own mind.

Taunting.

Teasing.

Testing.

I will always remember. That first day. That dreaded, wretched day.

So, _so_, clearly.

Begonia and monkshood, wrapped in a bouquet and tied with a ribbon blacker than the riverstones. Not for Piper. But for me. Always for me.

I smiled. I remember I smiled. Because you were beautiful, even then.

I was so naive. So stupid.

I'll never make the same mistake again.

I _know_.

_Are flowers losing their meaning in this age and time? Are they becoming little more than fickle decorations to be given away to others? Can flowers have the same impact as words do?_

I have so many questions, it seems. More questions than answers.

Everything seems like it's been detached. Like there's a faulty signal, and I'm looking at the world through cracked glass. Just short of shattering, but still strong enough to keep me from clarity. The gaps aren't wide enough for me to do much more than take a few stolen breaths of fresh, fresh air, but they're certainly wide enough for words.

Words and words and words; hard and cold and sharp as the glass itself.

And flowers.

Broken flowers; all shrivelled rose petals and red painted thorns. Still chasing after me, even though I thought the glass would keep them away.

Tell me, tell me, tell me.

_What are flowers to you?_

* * *

**A/N - The Prologue may seem a little ambiguous, but all will be clarified in time! Feel free to do whatever, or nothing, but a Review would be nice. I'm sorry that it's so short, but I don't believe I'm quite capable of a 1000 word piece just yet.**

**Keep track of the flowers! Begonia and monkshood this time round.**

**RiverGray**


	2. Chapter One

**A/N - IF THIS IS NOT YOUR FIRST TIME READING THIS FANFIC, I HAVE UPDATED THE PROLOGUE. THE CHANGES ARE NOT GOBSMACKINGLY IMPORTANT AND WILL NOT PROBABLY EFFECT YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE STORY BUT YOU MAY GET A LITLE CONFUSED AT SOME MINOR DETAILS LATER ON.**

**And, when all that's doen and said - Disclaimer is on my profile, and start reading!**

* * *

_'I tell you, my dear, she's a good smart girl!'_

_'Oh really?' the man said, 'How rare!'_

_'Don't dare doubt me, darling! I saw with my eyes,_

_No straying for love you'll see there!'_

* * *

Sometimes, grey days can surprise you.

And, other times, grey days don't.

The skies are overcast and dull, and life, in general, seems horribly monotonous and dreary.

Or, at least, that's what Annabeth thought.

She tugged her scarf tighter as she trudged her way through the early morning rush, not bothering to apologise for the few knocks and elbows that she gave out here and there. Life was too busy; why bother stopping?

Her destination on that finely meaningless day was the florists - 'Floral-on-the-Corner'. Which, she thought humourlessly, _precisely _described the position of the little pink and white store. Sitting meekly on the corner of Bronte Road, between a high-rise office complex on one side, and over-shadowed by a block of apartments on the other, it really _did_ seem quite... cornered.

'Stupid Piper's birthday for coming up at the most inconveniant time,' she muttered as she pulled to open the door.

Always charming and (usually) sweet, Piper was impossible to refuse and, combined with Thalia's blatent stubborness, Annabeth's two best friends had convinced her to take a weekend off from writing her architertural thesis and celebrate Piper's twenty-first.

She pulled at the door again. Stupid door jams, she thought.

It still didn't budge.

She looked up from where she was grumbling at the pavement and glared at the little laminated sign that said, 'PUSH', before shoving the door open with gusto.

Immediately upon entering, she was assaulted with the smell of springtime, which clashed awfully with the biting chill of autumn and the sreeching of car horns and tyres that lay a glass door away.

Annabeth smiled a wry little smile.

Albeit grudgingly.

* * *

Perhaps grey days _do_ surprise when given the chance; one can never really be sure.

Percy cursed as he rode his bicycle down the street, half on the road, weaving between the cars, and half on the pavement, trying his best not to run over any stray children.

He was going to be late.

He was going to get fired.

He was going to have to look for yet _another_ stupid job.

He cursed again, and swerved violently to avoid colliding with his thirteenth lamp-post. Lamp-posts were really out to antagonise him, he decided. Parking his bike just outside Floral-on-the-Corner, he leapt off, tripped over the chain, got his shoelace caught on the pedal, and dropped his backpack.

It was looking to be a great day.

Tired, and hussled and harried, he stormed into the florist shop, only to find a customer already waiting impatiently by the front counter.

"How can I help you?" he huffed, plonking down on the stool behind the counter and shoving his backpack between his feet.

The customer smiled, an empty, cynical sort of smile, and nodded in understanding.

"Mornings," she said, and her eyes settled on his. He blinked in surprise.

A glance at the sky, still grey, still cloudy, and then back to the customer in front of him.

She had grey stormy eyes.

He noted it, shrugged it off, nodded in acknowledgement and tried again.

"Good, well, not really so good, morning. How can I help you today?"

The grey-eyed girl (or woman, or lady; he could never tell what to call people who were not quite adults, but seemingly not quite children; lady was too weird, and woman was... well, that's what you said to your wife when you were a husband - which he most definitely was _not_; he wasn't a husband. At least he... never mind, he decided, anyway...) gave him a hint of a proper smile.

"I'm looking for a large birthday bouquet for one of my friends - do you have anything other than pink?" she said.

He mirrored her empty smile, because, hey, it was possible to be polite without being genuine.

"Your lady friend doesn't like pink?" he asked; not really teasing, or flirting, as one would expect, but, just... curious.

The girl (lady, woman) shook her head at him.

"She might be a guy."

He smiled her empty smile again, a little warmer this time.

"Ah, yes," he pointed out, "But you said 'she'."

And then she was back to that empty smile, and he switched back with her. He studied her face, trying for an exact copy. A little sardonic, lightly acidic, and with just the right amount of frost that said, 'Seriously? Don't even go there. I'm not in the mood for stupid people.'

Percy was good at reading expressions. Expressions weere important.

He took one last glance at the grey-day sky, before hauling himself out from behind the safety of the counter, and set about choosing a nice, large, pink-free birthday bouquet for the grey-day sky-eyed girl who could have been a lady or a woman.

* * *

Annabeth watched the shop... keeper? Assistant?

He looked too young to be a shopkeeper, she decided. He was somewhere in his late teens, early twenties, maybe. Possibly her age.

She shrugged mentally and resumed watching him.

His hands, tanned and long-fingered, brushed through the rows and rows of seemingly randomly assorted flowers, pausing to pluck out certain flowers and add them to his growing collection. Annabeth couldn't see his eyes as he worked, but she remembered the startling green they had been, like some mad scientist had decided to put emeralds and saphires in a super-powerful blender and mix them together before solidifying again. Clear and so... _green_, really. There wasn't another word she could think of.

Thalia would have been amused, she thought. The most outspoken of the trio, Thalia was always going on about Annabeth's unfailing ability to be a walking human dictionary/thesaurus/translator (Annabeth could epeak eleven languages, not counting multiple dialects and three and a half dead languages - she was learning Sanscrit, but had strangely never mastered French).

She noticed that he was only picking out two types of flowers - she had no idea what they were called, but one was brightly coloured and many-petaled, in varying shads of yellow and orange and peach. The other was a slimmer, more stately sort of thing, mostly a solemn blue, with one or two verging on purple. She wondered why he had chosen those two in particular, instead of the bewildering variety of roses and daisies and tulips and whatnots she could identify.

Some special birthday meaning behind it, she decided. She remembered that there had been an exhibition on the Victorian 'language of flowers' when she had been in high school. Why hadn't she gone to see it? Annabeth frowned, and then remembered she had been about to depart on the Classics tour to Greece.

After a few more adjustments to the arrangement of the flowers, the shop assistant turned to her, brandishing the bouquet with an almost triumphant gleam in his green, green eyes. She noted that his name badge was pinned in a haphazardly askew fashion, and that is read PERCY in bold blue capitals.

"Is this good?" he asked.

She inspected the arrangement of the flowers with a critical eye. It _was_ beautifully done - somehow carelessly ordered in a way that was confusing, but pleasing to the eye.

"Yes," she said politely, "It's fine. I'll take it."

"Now? Or, do you want it delivered?"

Annabeth considered for a moment, peering out of the windows to see if it was raining. The clouds were still ominously grey, but, thankfully, devoid of raindrops.

"I'll take it now, thank you," she said.

Percy the shop assistant gave her a vague, "Mm-kay," and a absent-minded bob of the head and set about messing up the front counter with rolls of cellophane, ribbon and a frighteningly large amount of tape.

"Do you want it labelled?" he asked as he stuck down the last edges of ribbon.

"No thank you."

"Okay then... and... done!"

He handed her the flowers and leant over to the cash register.

"That'll be $25," he announced.

She handed over the money and they both smiled politely at each other, mirroring empty smiles.

"Thank you and have a nice day," Percy the shop assistant said.

Annabeth glanced behind her shoulder at the still-grey sky and raised an eyebrow, before nodding in thanks and walking out of the shop.

Half a dozen steps down the street, she was back to grumbling about the state of the weather and boring life in general, the green eyed shop assistant slipping easily out of her mind.

* * *

Back behind the front counter of Floral-on-the-Corner, Percy stared at the grey-day-sky-eyed girl (lady, woman) for a moment, watching closely the way she walked and how her hair fell over her shoulders and across her back, before reaching down into backpack and pulling out a battered leatherbound notebook.

He grabbed a pen from beside the tiller and opened it, flicking through the pages almost madly, before settling on a blank page. He then paused for a moment, and looked back up again to check on the grey-eyed girl (lady, woman), but she was gone.

He frowned. Well, there wasn't much he could do about that, he thought and huffed in mild annoyance.

Then, focusing back on the blank page before him, he leant back on the little stool, clicked the pen and began to draw.

Sometimes, he thought, grey days really can surprise you.

* * *

**A/N - I WENT PAST THE 1500 WORD MARK! Hooray for me and my lack of creative inspiration. Read and Review you guys!**


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